Midnight Hill Jog

May 17, 2021

9 K: 50:38.68

1 K: 3:57.33

2.5 K: 14:35.20

Total 12.5 K: 1:09:11

I was off today. I buried my nose in this project that will keep me occupied for the  coming few months. It's not a completely new task. Much of it is revising work. But nonetheless it requires a lot of careful thinking and concentration. Phase 1 of Project 1 is about half done. But I'm fairly ahead of schedule. So, I felt a bit relaxed at the end of the day. I wanted to talk to my body more than my mind, so I threw myself in running gear and hit the road at midnight for that great feeling of keeping all the street to myself. 

I ran along this out-and-back 6 K course without setting any goal. If I feel good when I hit halfway, I may run longer than 6 K. If not, I'll just settle for 6. 

When I got to the 3 K mark, I did feel awesome. So, I ran back and forth between the 3 K and 4 K mark two additional times to make it a solid 10 K run.

With 1 K remaining, I kicked to finish strong. I ran the last K in under 4 minutes. Bravo! I could have called it for a day. But knowing the benefit for a slow jog after a fast run, I gave myself a bonus 2.5 K run just to warm down.  

I feel my mind-body has been going through a transformation from middle age into early old age. Explosive power is slowly but surely waning. But at the same time, I feel a benefit of loss of such power. For example, running economy is definitely improving. Because you have significantly less power, you cannot rely on it. And therefore out of the instinct of survival your mind-body tries to compensate for it with something else. And that is running economy. I feel my body has become a lot lighter too. I weighed myself on the scale after a shower. I did weigh a little lighter. From now on, it will be harder and harder for me to cling to my muscles. It's a sad reality. But again, every cloud has a silver lining. A lighter body can be an advantage in long distance running. So we'll see.